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Sometimes the next layer isn’t paint. It’s paper.Collage sits somewhere between craft and fine art, and that’s exactly where things get interesting.
In this workshop, Barb Smucker shows you how to use collage as a serious fine-art tool for building depth, complexity, texture, and visual possibility, whether you’re a collage artist ready to push your practice further or an abstract painter looking to bring paper into the conversation.
We’ll begin by creating colorful, unexpected collage papers using a variety of prompts and techniques, paying close attention to color harmony, patterning, mark making, opacity, and color value. Using the Gelli Plate, acrylic paint scraping, brushwork, and a host of techniques, you’ll create a wide variety of papers with visual variety and harmony. These papers become more than materials. They become another vocabulary of marks, shapes, colors, and textures to draw from.
Next, you’ll incorporate your collage papers into mixed-media layering techniques, working intuitively, expressively, and abstractly. Through a series of prompts and exercises, you’ll layer collage papers with mark making and acrylic paint to complete a series of small 8 x 8-inch improvisational pieces on paper. Moving elements around, adding, removing, and responding to what’s in front of you, you’ll discover how collage can become a powerful tool for quick problem solving and opening up visual possibilities.
Finally, you’ll scale up and put those ideas into practice, completing a larger 24 x 24-inch layered mixed-media collage piece on canvas.
The goal isn’t simply to make collage. It’s to use paper to break predictable habits, create depth without endlessly adding paint, and build complexity without muddying the surface.
Designed For
Collage artists ready to push their practice further
Abstract painters looking to expand their visual vocabulary
Mixed-media artists wanting to bridge the gap between paint and paper
Artists ready to move beyond the expected and create more complex, layered work
Anyone who wants to learn how to pull a piece from muddy to clarity—using color, contrast, and composition with both paint and collage.
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Event venue
1202 Soniat Street, New Orleans, LA, United States, Louisiana 70115
Tickets
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Workshops in New OrleansPainting in New OrleansFine-arts in New OrleansCrafts in New OrleansArt in New Orleans